It's only a big deal because the far left media elite are
unfairly using it as an opportunity to pile on.

Those last two points have been popping up on Fox News of late, also. And, if this op-ed is
anything to judge by, will likely become a familiar refrain.

Last week FOX's morning show Fox & Friends
did a report on the scandal that wrapped the phone-hacking
into the much larger hacking problem that is occurring
nation-wide, emphasized that this hacking had occurred years
ago, and suggested the liberal media elite quit 'piling on.'

The WSJ piece appears to be inspired at
least in part by Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton's sudden resignation on
Friday. Hinton is credited with putting the Dow Jones back
on the right track, and there are reports that he left the news
to a round of applause. His absence puts the Dow Jones in
some uncertain waters.

In his resignation letter, Mr. Hinton said he knew nothing about
wide-scale hacking and had testified truthfully to Parliament in
2007 and 2009. We have no reason to doubt him, especially based
on our own experience working for him.

However, the op-ed also takes a wide swing at the
Guardian (and possibly the NYT), the paper that
has lead the years-long crusade to uncover the phone-hacking
scandal: "We also trust that readers can see through the
commercial and ideological motives of our competitor-critics. The
Schadenfreude is so thick you can't cut it with a chainsaw.
Especially redolent are lectures about journalistic standards
from publications that give Julian Assange and WikiLeaks their moral imprimatur."

It then takes a a direct hit at the Bancroft family who last week
said they regretted the sale of the paper in light of the
scandal: "We shudder to think what the Journal would look like
today without the sale to News
Corp."

Indeed. At least they avoided the phrase 'don't
retreat, reload' though that would certainly sum up the
underlying message.

To be clear, what we are likely seeing here is the official
declaration of News Corps' American talking points ahead of the
scandal coming Stateside.

Howie Kurtz
reports that News Corp is hiring another outside
public-relations firm in addition to Edleman to help "spearhead
that effort and field inquiries involving Fox
News, local Fox stations, and the New York Post." Presumably this op-ed was
their warning shot.

On CNN Sunday Michael Wolff recounted sitting in
Murdoch's office listening to him dictate stories and opinions
over the phone to his reporters. It's hard not to read this
and get the sense that's exactly what happened here.